Hans Oster

Hans Oster (9 August 1887-9 April 1945) was a general of the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany and a leading figure in the German Resistance from 1938 to 1943. Oster, Wilhelm Canaris, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were executed at the Flossenburg concentration camp on 9 April 1945 for plotting against Adolf Hitler.

Biography
Hans Oster was born in Dresden, Saxony, German Empire on 9 August 1887, and he served in the Imperial German Army during World War I, entering the general staff in 1916. He remained in the reduced Reichswehr officer corps during the Interwar period, but he was fired in 1932 for attending a carnival in the demilitarized Rhineland region, where German soldiers were not allowed. He joined the Prussian police and served under Hermann Goering, and Oster transferred to the Abwehr in 1933. He became a confidant to Wilhelm Canaris, and he initially supported the rise of Nazism, but he became disillusioned with Adolf Hitler after the 1934 Night of the Long Knives, and he had a willingness to save Jews after Kristallnacht. In September 1938, he headed a conspiracy against Hitler that involved the military overthrowing Hitler in the case of war with Czechoslovakia over the Sudetenland and restoring Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to power. His co-conspirator Ludwig Beck was fired as Wehrmacht commander-in-chief for his aversion to warring with the Western powers over Czechoslovakia, weakening his plot. In 1940, Oster sent twenty warnings to the Netherlands as Germany repeatedly delayed its plans to invade, but his warnings were seen as lies by the Dutch government. Oster, while working for the Abwehr, disguised his German Resistance operations as intelligence work, and he gave falsified papers to Jews to save them from arrest. On 21 July 1944, Hitler had Oster arrested due to his suspected involvement with the 20 July plot, and the discovery of Wilhelm Canaris' diary on 4 April 1945 led to a raging Hitler ordering for all conspirators to be executed. Oster, Canaris, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were executed by hanging at the Flossenburg concentration camp on 8 April.